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E-Paper On Cereal Boxes
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Dec 15, 2005 03:55 PM
from the that-sounds-really-annoying dept.
from the that-sounds-really-annoying dept.
coastin writes "Wired Mag has an article about electronics maker Siemens,
readying a paper-thin electronic-display technology. They say
it is so cheap it could replace conventional labels on disposable
packaging. Imagine items on grocer's shelves that flash commercials
at you as you walk by. From the article: 'When kids see flashing
pictures on cereal boxes we don't expect them to just ask for the
product, but to say, "I want it", said Axel Gerlt, an engineer
at Siemens tasked with helping packaging companies implement the
technology.'"
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Hardware: GE Announces OLED Manufacturing Breakthrough 192 comments
bughunter writes "Today GE announced the successful demonstration of the world's first roll-to-roll manufactured organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting devices (press release). This demonstration is a key step toward making OLEDs and other high-performance organic electronics products at dramatically lower costs than what is possible today. The green crowd is thrilled as well. Personally, as the parent of a 3-year-old technophile, I'm dreading the animated cereal boxes." Now can I get my Optimus Keyboard for less than $1,299?
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Can you think of a better way (Score:5, Insightful)
Epilepsy? (Score:5, Insightful)
How utterly depressing (Score:5, Insightful)
> expect them to just ask for the product, but to say, "I want it", said Axel
> Gerlt, an engineer at Siemens tasked with helping packaging companies implement
> the technology.'
Western culture appears to have lost its vision.
New technology being thought of in terms of how much you can make a child coerce its parent into buying cereal?
We're amusing ourselves to death.
It's much worse than that... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't tell you how many boxes of Frosted Flakes I ate for the primary goal of getting the Disney Afternoon figurine inside. There were also numerous times I thought I wanted something, but didn't actually know what it was.
Parent
Re:It's much worse than that... (Score:5, Interesting)
Had to ask a woman (mid 20's, high school drop out, and quite frankly couldn't even approach pretty without plastic surgery) if, after looking at an ad, she thought some shampoo that cost more than she made in an hour would make her "beautiful". Was totally shocked when she said yes, and decided I couldn't do a job where the point was to find people's misconceptions and exploit them.
Parent
Re:How utterly depressing (Score:5, Insightful)
Haven't a great many of the popular advances in the 19th and 20th century been driven by marketing, and the desire to draw attention for purposes of profit? The earliest visions of the phograph's uses were more oriented towards automated marketing than towards the memoranda and music they were actually used for. Color printing was exclusively for the purpose of making product packaging more appealing, and television only became possible as a mass-market item when it was married to marketing (to this day, commercials are the life blood of the networks).
Early radio broadcasts were practically commerials with a thin veil of entertainment laid over them. It took a little while for radio commercials to seperate from the actual content (when they started announcing the products during frequent breaks, rather than the programs constantly hawking a product within a poorly contrived story).
Holograms were invented simply to see it done, but the bulk of the funding came from companies who sought to apply them as the new wonder-label (which turned out to remain prohibitively expensive for some time, and just never that appealing).
Western technology has been driven by three primary needs:
* direct threats - be it war, disease, famine, etc. Death avoidance.
* misguided ambition - attempting to create something unrealistic, and ending up with something unexpected (and often unnoticed for some time)
* commerce - the inherent desire to make people give you money
Altruism is a noble thing, but it's greed that makes the world actually turn.
Parent
Re:How utterly depressing (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, it's conservation of angular momentum.
Parent
Re:How utterly depressing (Score:5, Interesting)
Many cultures have risen to heights, both technological and philosophical, some of which we ourselves can't yet lay claim to. But from a historical standpoint, Eurocentric societies have rapidly moved from being quite literally the armpit of the known world, to the absolute domination of the globe (both the US and modern Russia count as eurocentrically derrived, in the long run). Only China and the middle east can claim to have had a global impact worth comparing.
Why? Simple. Europeans, back in the dark ages, identified, enumerated, and understood human nature. They knew their sins, which made them easier to pursue.
Greed - the need to make money, and to find more ways of getting as much of it as possible.
Sloth - just plain lazyness. We want our machines to do the work for us.
Gluttony - the drive to produce more plentiful food, that tastes better, regardless of nutritional content or actual need.
Wrath - newer and better ways to kill our fellow man
Envy - one nation sees what another has, and wants it for themselves, so they have to figure it out for themselves.
Pride - the need to produce something better than what's out there, to become famous for your creations, or for national pride.
Lust - I'm not sure how to articulate why this actually drives western progress, but I'm certain it's the keystone to all our social evolution.
Parent
Re:How utterly depressing (Score:5, Funny)
Is that anything like saying "Ni!" to old women?
Parent
Re:How utterly depressing (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it takes *seriious* time and effort to do this but it is well worth it.
Parent
Harry Potter (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing Nick Nolte's mug shot scowling out at me from a post office wall would be most disconcerting.
Then again, a moving poster of [insert favorite model here] would be most intriguing.
Grocery store? (Score:5, Interesting)
Boy, did the prognisticators really miss that one -- everyone kept talking about web-enabled microwaves. Little did they know the web-enabled cereal box would come first.
Yeah, right (Score:5, Informative)
Average prices for labels run about $3-$10 per thousand. The most expensive labels on metallic stock with lots of spot colors might be $30 per thousand.
That's still 3 cents per label for the most expensive ones. I doubt they could even sort out the power supply for these things that cheaply.
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Funny)
I feel your pain, brother. I work for a retail color laser printer. Printers are the worst bosses. This one pays me cash, the bank once said something about yellow dots in my money, and refused to accept a deposit.
Parent
Just what the environment needs (Score:5, Interesting)
On the bright side you'll always know if the product is fresh or not. Not fresh: no display. Of course then you won't know till you open it if you have Cheerios or Chex Mix.
First things first (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty please?
Oh, and make it uncrippled. Yes, I'm looking at you, Sony.
Re:First things first (Score:5, Informative)
Two e-ink based readers are supposed to be released soon: The Hanlin V8/V2 [jinke.com.cn] and a device from iRex [teleread.org]. The iRex reader is supposed to support Linux and be released in "early 2006" in Europe. The Hanlin V8 with a proprietary OS is supposed to be released "by the end of this year" in China for around $300, with the Linux-based V2 being released in May worldwide at about $320.
My money is on iRex, since they're backed by Philips and have a larger screen, but they might be more expensive than the Hanlin device. We'll see!
Parent
I can see it now... (Score:5, Funny)
Curse or Blessing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Medicine vials? (Score:5, Funny)
"You say the defendant, Local Pharmacy Inc., failed to warn your late husband about possible side effects of the drug?"
"Yes, sir."
"Show me the bottle. Let's see here. 'Not to be taken with alcohol. May cause dizziness, blindness, and death.' Clearly, if he had read the bottle, he would have known about the 'death' side-effect."
"Sure, but the label didn't say 'death' until just an hour ago. It said 'headaches'."
And that is how western civilization crumbled... (Score:5, Funny)
Pathetic parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
And I expect good parents to whack them upside the head until they say please.
And then whack them upside the head until they politely shut up after the parent says "No".
If Google has taught us anything... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean, in the same way it's possible to "hack" the FPU out of a CPU into another unit? THINK about it. If they print all the circuitry as a single device, you'd have to have fab-quality tools to directly interface with the ePaper. That is NOT my idea of a "hackable" piece of ePaper. (Especially since it would be cheaper and easier just to purchase a generic ePaper display.) And that's assuming that they don't further cut corners with tricks like not adding eInk to areas that don't change in the animation.
Parent
Re:It's coming (Score:5, Funny)
Why would we limit ourselves to inanimate surfaces? I envision a day when I go to a seafood restaurant and the oysters have a self-updating "I've been out of water DD HH.MI.SS" display attached to their shells; the lobsters have a "My claws currently weight WW ounces each, and I was harvested only HH hours ago" display on their carapaces; and the waiters have dazzling, dynamic pieces of flair attached to their uniforms that vibrantly inform me how much they love their job.
Parent